AN: Ha ha ha ha... yeeeeaaaah, sorry for those of you that were freaking out about that last joke-chapter (which has been taken down now). I had to, because it was April Fools Day. ^.^'

This one's real! I absolutely promise!

May 17, 2011
7:42 PM

L glanced over his shoulder as Aizawa exited the room. "Take care, Aizawa-san."

The officer grunted as he put on his coat and headed out the door.

Near twisted a strand of his hair around his finger. "Ryuzaki, come look at this."

L took a sip of tea and swiveled his chair over to look at Near's computer monitor. "What is it?"

"I just found an interesting correlation: lately there have been many accidental deaths among petty criminals in a very specific area of the city."

L stuck his head very close to the screen and began to bite his thumb. "Ah! I see what you mean. And they've all died within the past one and a half months..."

Neither of them had to say the name out loud.

Kira!!

"What do you think we should do about this?" L asked Near out of curiosity.

"Surveillance. Maybe some undercover work," Near replied. "If I were to guess, based on this information, there is a 98% chance that Kira is actually within the immediate area--"

"Which is definitely a possibility to look into," L finished, a small smirk on his face. "My thoughts exactly."

Near nodded before turning back to the monitor. "It's interesting... This building, here--" he pointed to the map on the screen, "--is coincidentally the very building where--"

"RYUZAKIIIIIIIIIIIIIII!!"

L tried not to roll his eyes. What on earth is he so excited about?"In here, Matsuda-san!" he calmly shouted back. L took another sip of tea, finishing his cup.

Matsuda came rushing in, looking rather winded. "You might not believe me--" breath, "--but I was just downtown--" breath, "--and I saw--saw--a shinigami!!"

"..."

"..."

"..."

L only raised an eyebrow. "Really."

"Really!!"

The statement failed to grasp L's interest. That, and it didn't logically make sense. "Matsuda-san, did it perhaps occur to you that one cannot see a god of death unless the person in question has touched it's notebook?"

"NO! Ryuzaki, you're missing the point!! This was RYUK, the shinigami attached to the notebook we had at headquarters and the one that killed Light at the Yellowbox warehouse!!"

L couldn't think of a good retort to that.

"AND, technically we DID touch that notebook, so it SHOULD possible for all of us in the taskforce and SPK to see him!!" Matsuda finished with a big smirk on his face.

...Well.

"He has my attention," commented Near.

L bit his thumb. "Alright," he allowed, "where did you see this shinigami?"

Matsuda's smirk immediately turned into a grimace. "Ha ha... About that... It's, erm, kind of a long story."

"...So then I came running back here to tell you guys as quickly as I could," Matsuda finished all in a rush.

Near didn't say a word. He turned to L.

L glanced at Near.

Matsuda began sweating.

Please believe me... Pleeeeeeease believe me...!

"I suppose it makes sense..." Near slowly allowed.

Yesss!!

"...but I don't think that the current Kira could actually be living in the same building that Light and Misa once did," he said. "That much is too coincidental."

"Huh?? But Near," Matsuda complained, "that means we have nothing to go on!! Can't we at least try to see if the guy living there now is Kira??"

Near firmly shook his head. "No, Mr. Matsuda, we cannot; it would be a waste of energy and--"

"Stop."

It wasn't said in a loud voice, with force or agitation. On the contrary: L had mumbled it so the command had been barely audible. Matsuda noticed only then that L had been staring off into space for several minutes.

"...Ryuzaki?" he asked tentatively.

"Near," L said, "I feel that you are probably right about the situation. The chance of such a coincidence occurring is impossibly small, and therefore has no justification."

Aww man! Matsuda's shoulders slumped.

"But."

Matsuda perked up again. "But what??" he asked, perhaps a bit too quickly.

L glanced at Matsuda, then moved his eyes back to Near. "It just occurred to me that such a small chance is impossible only if you were completely, 100% right about the notebooks owned by the previous Kiras."

...It was official: Matsuda was lost.

Near's expression was blank, but if Matsuda were to guess, he would say it was somehow more blank than normal. Rather like he was lost as well...

"What did you do with the two notebooks at the Yellowbox Warehouse?" L gently prodded.

"I burned them," Near responded instantly.

"Did you?" L asked.

"Yes." Another instantaneous response.

L paused. "...Did you?" he asked again, softer.

Near was about to respond--presumably with "yes" again--but suddenly stopped. Over the course of a few seconds, his expression changed completely.

For the first time that Matsuda had ever seen, the boy looked positively shocked.

"...NO! I don't know that we burned the real notebooks!"

"What?" asked Matsuda. "Of course we burned the notebooks!!"

"No," Near responded, "we burned one of the Death Notes. One of them was real, but the other..." He trailed off midsentence.

Suddenly Matsuda got it too. "W-we never tested them..." he muttered.

"And that," L said, "is the flaw. One can reasonably assume that if one of those two notebooks was a fake, it was probably--"

"The one Mikami used!" Matsuda shouted.

Near frowned. "No, it couldn't have been that one: had Light thought to replace that one before I stole it, he certainly could have prevented his own downfall and death in the process..."

"Which means the Death Note at headquarters," L concluded, "had to be the one that was switched."

Well, Light had had full access to it... Matsuda wanted to slap himself for not even thinking about that earlier. Then, he realized something else.

"L-Light told us--right before he tried to kill Near--that he'd replaced the notebook at headquarters," Matsuda thought out loud, "We all thought he was bluffing to buy time, but maybe..."

L was clearly thinking hard. "Yes... Light could have been lying about that, but we don't know. It rather looks as though he wasn't... So he took the Death Note that had been at headquarters and hid it."

"...In his apartment!!" Matsuda shouted excitedly.

"Yes, probably," said Near, a thoughtful expression on his face.

"Which means," L concluded, "that there is a 97% chance that the person living there now... is Kira."

AN: Ah, so the truth FINALLY comes out!

Even more of the truth is coming in the next chapter... :P

In other odd news, I now have a new, totally random poll on my profile, inspired by xXxMasqueradexXx and her total freak-out reaction to a very specific YouTube video in which Madonna is cosplaying someone from Death Note (Honestly, I'm not kidding). XD Check it out!

Review? Maybe I'll update faster... *hint hint*